The End of WAR

Thought I'd better get off on the right foot here as a total newbie.

So, I'll begin by attacking one of the other sections of this site, namely "WAR."

It's my impression that very little is usually gained by attacking other people's ideas (except of course in this posting). ;)

It may make one feel righteous, but an attack, as such, is usually taken to imply that the person under that attack is somehow defective or disgusting or evil.

My experience is that most people with whom I have major philosophical disagreements are in fact none of the above. They are simply mistaken.

However, by "attacking" them, it may be possible to get them to respond in kind, which is NOT, I should emphasize, for those who haven't figured this out themselves, the same as convincing them to adopt better ideas.

"Attacks" are useful under certain circumstances, to be sure. If one wishes to make someone else look like a fool in front of an audience, then, to be sure, an attack is a great way to accomplish that, provided that one can successfully carry it off. It may win social-metaphysical points from fellow true believers, but it will not likely convince anyone to change his or her minds. The net result will instead be more polarization, anger and a loss of opportunity to actually win converts to a position.

I suggest a more market-like approach. If people are holding a wrong idea, then what are the costs of that?

An example I discuss on one of my own blogs is that of a person who attempts to do the right thing, not realizing that he or she has accepted a set of cultural memes which are inherently unachievable or self-contradictory. Over a span of years or decades, such a person is driven to despair as their efforts to be true to their beliefs result in more and more destruction.

Failing to find any happiness in attempting to be consistent and rational - within the bounds of their erroneous beliefs - they find peace in accepting some irrational fantasy such as a religious cult, usually at the recommendation of some friend who has gone the same route before them and is eager to "help" them. Naturally, this peace is fragile and often short-lived, as it not only accomplishes little or nothing in improving their lives, but also carries with it certain implicit evaluations.

To wit: that reality itself is somehow malevolent and that they are incapable of dealing successfully with it.

Unfortunately, like an alcoholic, if things then go wrong otherwise in their lives, they find a need for more and more of their escape hole, and may also find that convincing other people to join them in turn helps fend off the inevitable feelings of anxiety - due to the above-mentioned implicit evaluations, depression - due to suppression of the anxiety, and anger at life in general for failing them in some unnamed fundamental way, which is targeted, however, on anyone who attempts to demonstrate just how off-track they have gotten.

A large portion of today's humanity is caught up to one degree or another in this potential death spiral. Many of them manage to compartmentalize their lives so that they only turn to irrationalism when serious metaphysical issues confront them. The idea, for example, that "God has a plan" allows them to deal with death and injustice without falling into despair. The irrationalism becomes the automatic escape door from metaphysical angst, with formulas to cover all contingencies. This is very likely the major underpinning of religion in general, to stave off despair at not having a real understanding of life or how to properly deal with it.

Such a person may do many things right in their lives, may accomplish great works, may be an otherwise marvelous person - or, if things go seriously wrong, then the crutch of their Faith, may, like alcohol or opium (to give the Devil Marx his due - occasionally even truly evil people get things right) lead them to total destruction. Many devout Muslims, for example, are also good businessmen, practice benevolence and considerable wisdom in their personal dealings and otherwise contribute to the general well-being and wealth of our world.

Yet their faith, just like Christianity or Judaism or any other irrationalist crutch, may betray and undercut all those good works and strengths of character.

To simply attack their beliefs as irrational will not change very many minds. I would suggest that a more productive approach is to sell the positive solutions that rationality and objectivity offer. Imagine attempting to convince primitive tribesmen of the irrationality of depending upon their witchdoctor for curing diseases... via logical analysis...

As opposed to giving antibiotics.

Post 1

Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 10:42pm

The marketing approach will go well with people who want to produce, but what about the people who want to loot?

Post 2

Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 11:21pm

If a person is religious, then they accept ideas by faith and popularity instead of science and reason. How would one use science and reason to help them discover contradictions? Would they even care to correct the contradictions after they are found, or just say "I don't understand, but that is just because I am only human. God has a plan and he knows."

I don't think the war is irrationality vs rationality or faith vs science. I think its socialism/communism/anarchism vs capitalism. Its looters vs producers. Hmmm... everyone is not pure black/white producer/looter.

The "war for men's minds" is a war over the producer's minds, where looters try to make producers feel guilty for controlling the products of their own labor, and we try to teach the producers the concept of "sanction of the victim"... So that one day the producers rise together, stop giving away their values unjustly, and begin to protect their lives and values from looters.

Dean
My views are in no way meant to represent RoR or any other person or movement, simply my own ramblings.

What tools and technologies enable individuals to protect the products of their own labor? Are their ways to improve these technologies or create new ones?

Post 3

Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 12:52am

Phil Osborn asked:
Many devout Muslims, for example, are also good businessmen, practice benevolence and considerable wisdom in their personal dealings and otherwise contribute to the general well-being and wealth of our world. Yet their faith, just like Christianity or Judaism or any other irrationalist crutch, may betray and undercut all those good works and strengths of character. To simply attack their beliefs as irrational will not change very many minds. I would suggest that a more productive approach is to sell the positive solutions that rationality and objectivity offer. Imagine attempting to convince primitive tribesmen of the irrationality of depending upon their witchdoctor for curing diseases... via logical analysis...

Welcome and thanks for the insightful post. You ask a complicated question. I know no easy answer. Each engagement latches with several aspects.

There are many reasons why Objectivism has this mantle of conflict. Most of them might have originated in the mind of Ayn Rand herself, but certainly, they resonated with millions of other people. Rand's biographies mention her love of adventure stories with military themes. Her theory of aesthetics explains why the largest, deepest and broadest conflicts are required in fiction, why a grocery clerk can relate to a story about a great capitalist but not vice versa. So, titanic struggles define the stories in which the philosophy is presented. You are asking, basically, not why such stories are told, by why people listen to them. Mythologies such as "The Twelve Labors of Herakles" are all about conflict and they are compelling. So, it is easy to paint philosophical inquiry in colors of "a war for men's minds." But that begs the question.

On the other hand, in Merchants Make History, Ernst Samhaber points to the successes of certain Arab and Dutch traders who did not argue religion with their clients. You usually do not need to force people to do anything that they perceive as being in their self-interest. In fact, you usually need force to prevent them from acting as they want. So, if Objectivism is something people really want, it is not necessary to "go to war." Just offer it for sale. Those who want to buy, will.

What of those who do not want to buy? Here on RoR (and before that, SOLO), writers such as Lindsay Perrigo, John Armaos, Clarence Hardy, Andre Zantonavitch, Michael F. Dickey, and even Dean Michael Gores have expressed fear and loathing for people who disagree with them. "Islamo-fascist filth" have displaced the communists, socialists, and welfare-statists as targets for invective. If you read the words exchanged, it is hard to imagine any "middle ground." Yet, Samhaber has a point.

A few months ago, I had a problem with my New Individualist subscription and I called the office and who should answer but Clarence Hardy! Did he demand that I renounce anarcho-islam before he would grant me the sanction of talking to me? No, he did not. He sounded happy to hear from me and promised to look into it; and I was just as happy to hear from him that it would be taken care of. A good merchant does not argue religion with his client.

Merchants are not threatened by "no" because the overwhelming majority of people say "no" to them all the time. Right now, on my desk is an Elmer's Glue Stick. Billions of people did not buy it before I came along. Elmer seems capable of living with that. On the other hand, some people cannot take "no." They demand "yes" at the point of a gun. Dean Michael Gores wants to know how to deal with them. My answer is, "You cannot -- and you don't need to." If someone wants to bother you, just increase the distance between you.

Other strategies include persuasion. In "Bourgeois Virtues" Dierdre McCloskey makes a point of the distinction between convincing and persuading. Etymologically, convincing is conquering and defeating while persuading is softening or sweetening. While some business communication might involve "winning through intimidation" mostly all we want is "getting to yes."

In order to do that, though, the other person must be able to deliver what you need. When what you need is self-esteem, that is impossible. I have seen people with low self-esteem convince others that they are right, but winning the argument does not fill the deeper need, so another argument with another person is inevitable. Eric Hoffer's The True Believer neatly outlines that.

How do you deal with an oppressive government? How do you deal with mice who want to eat your grain? Building a granary seems more effective than killing all the mice in the world.

As for that witch doctor and your antibiotics, a long time ago, I read an Objectivist essay denouncing a psychologist who said that witch doctors could be effective in counseling. In the last five semesters of criminal justice, one thing I have learned is that the sum total of all available witch doctors might mitigate the sum total of all the world's problems. I call it "the seven percent solution: if you have 14 different treatments, each will be successful with one-fourteenth of the population." Antibiotics are not "the" answer for disease, though they work on some ailments. If the germ theory of disease were complete and sufficient, then everyone would have died in the first plague.

How is it that Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Ted Turner are brilliant enough to build their enterprises, but too stupid to see the obvious benefits of Objectivism? To me, Objectivism is a no-brainer. I was convinced by Anthem. After that, The Fountainhead, Atlas, the Basic Principles Course, all of that and more was just more frosting on the cake. Apparently, a few million other people feel about the same way. Others do not.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/21, 12:54am)

Post 4

Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 11:52am

[Dean has] expressed fear and loathing for people who disagree with [him]

Can you point me toward a specific example where I have done this?

I have expressed fear and loathing for people who want to tax and enslave others. In one case I was very persistent at pointing out one person's contradictions when it was claimed that requiring individuals to take care of all children was consistent with objectivism. I think you are just surprised and a little upset that I categorized anarchism with communism. : )

Post 5

Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 3:18pm

Phil:

Re your 1st post, the biggest prob re 'attacking' is that few, very, very few, distinguish this from mere 'criticism.' To these, the two terms are synonymous, regardless whether the criticism is clearly personal (as re the criticized one's character) or not.

LLAP
J:D

Post 6

Thursday, December 21, 2006 - 8:25pm

'If a person is religious, then they accept ideas by faith and popularity instead of science and reason. How would one use science and reason to help them discover contradictions? Would they even care to correct the contradictions after they are found, or just say "I don't understand, but that is just because I am only human. God has a plan and he knows."'

But there are reasons why they accept ideas by faith, etc. Admittedly, for a person whose life security and happiness are perceived to hinge upon their "faith," getting them to listen to anything that appears to challenge or undercut that faith is likely a futile effort and may only make things worse, both for that person and for the person attempting to rescue them from their folly. Try going to Iraq and arguing for atheism in the local Mosque. Oh, wait, I forgot, you wanted to live... Bottom line is that you can't start there - an attack on their fundamental faith - with such people.

But you don't have to go that far. I recall tentatively asking a friend in North Georgia how he felt about atheists, when I was in high school there in the '60's. This was a guy who had a deep commitment to science and rationality in his daily life. He was studying engineering and had been building and repairing radios and TVs even as a kid. His response was that atheists should be strung up from the nearest tree.

Or, there was my artist friend who admitted that she became religious when a beloved bady sister tragically died, simply because she felt that she couldn't live with the pain. The assumption that there is a God who would take care of her sister in paradise allowed her to go on with her life.

And this is a lot of the sales pitch for the various God memes. You convince someone at an early age that without "faith," life will be mean and meaningless. In my own case, brought up by neurotic deeply religious parents, this was coupled with the idea that God was constantly reading my mind, waiting for me to have an "evil thought," (such as, doubting in his existence) at which point he was likely to strike me down with a thunderbolt from on high. That was a difficult hurdle to overcome as a kid reading "Atlas Shrugged" at age twelve, believe me, but I suspect that fundamentally the fear approach is weaker than if I had been raised by reasonably happy Christians (NOT my parents), who felt that God made life's beauty possible.

Some of the deepest thinkers and smartest people I know are devout Christians. And if you think that that means that I must be stupid, then try this site: http://home.earthlink.net/~gbl111/cosmos.htm
I know the author, and have spent many evenings at his home with other atheists who come to have their ideas seriously challenged by Brady and his fellow Christian Apologetics. If you read Brady's alleged proof of the existence of God, and you have some background in academic philosophy, you'll likely recognize that for the first few pages, he is laying out a basically Thomistic/neo-Aristotelean metaphysics that an objectivist should have few problems with. In fact, it could be used to clarify some of the metaphysical positions that Rand hands us in her kind of throw-away "you figure out the details" manner. (Note that I DO have problems later on with Brady's "proof.")

Again, the point is that people compartmentalize their lives and beliefs. As long as being a Muslim means spending a few minutes per day in prayer and taking care not to commit harm upon one's neighbors, there is little immediate harm in this. I would argue that there definitely IS long-term harm, as in a failure to focus on certain major problems, such as human mortality.

After all, if GOD is going to take care of you when you die, then what is the point of life-extension? If one-tenth of the money that goes into useless religious practices were to go into medical research, we would probably extend healthy, youthful human life greatly in short order, and fairly soon have a real handle on aging in general. But I can't force someone else to support my value judgements.

"What tools and technologies enable individuals to protect the products of their own labor? Are their ways to improve these technologies or create new ones?"

That's a good question... I think that there are such tools, or that such tools can be developed. One thing that I've been looking into for some time is a "social contract." PayPal could start this going, for example, by simply posting a contract as to how all signatories anywhere agreed to resolve their disputes. It could be a contract for binding arbitration, let's say, using the rules of the American Arbitration Association, with some kind of mechanisms for appeals, etc., written into the language of the agreement.

But instead of binding you to one other party, or some limited set of parties for the duration or scope of some set of transactions, the key is that it would explicitly bind you and ALL signatories to a method of resolving disputes. So, if you had a car accident while vacationing in Beruit, then instead of going to the local corrupt magistrate to sort things out according to whomever can pay him the most, if you were lucky that day, then both you and the other party would pull out your card showing that you were both signatories to the Social Contract.

Note that this transcends and makes largely irrelevant the state court systems. Here in California, the courts would be generally delighted to see such a development, as they are swamped with litigation and typically demand that litigants attempte arbitration first before they will even let them bring a case before them.

The problem is control of risk, especially accross state borders, especially in areas where state "justice" is notoriously lacking or faulty, as in most of the developing world's kleptocracies. It is excessive risk that prevents investment in many areas of the world. I could go on at considerable length on this topic, but I don't have the time today. Let me just conclude by saying that simple mechanisms like a universal social contract could potentially undercut the moochers and sociopaths of the world to harm us, while opening up vast new opportunities for capital investment.

Post 7

Friday, December 22, 2006 - 12:33am

G. Brady Lenardos wrote:

The infinite universe models say that all past events have been
traversed coming forward. So, we should be able to traverse all events
going backwards. After all, there are no more events going backward,
than are coming forward; there are the exact same number of events.
But, if we can traverse all past events going backwards, we will
have come to a point when there are no more events to cross. Thus,
all events would be traversed. If all events have been traversed
going backwards, and no events remain to be traversed, then we will have
come to an end. If we come to an end, then the series is finite. You
see, an end going backward would be a beginning coming forward,
and if it had a beginning it must be finite. If it is finite it is not
infinite.

What if we never get to an end going backwards? It would mean that all
past events could not be traversed; and if all past events cannot be
traversed going backwards, then they could not be traversed coming
forwards. The same number of events are involved. If the series of events
could not be traversed coming forward, then we would never be able to
get to the current event we are experiencing right now. Yet, we are
at the present event. Therefore, there are not an infinite number of
events.

Extracted from paragraph form:
1. We are experiencing current events, so one can get to the current state of Reality.
2. There are an infinite number of past events.
3. One cannot "traverse all past events" by traversing backwards. (No matter how far traversed, there is more to traverse)
4. One cannot "traverse all past events" by traversing forwards. (No matter how early the starting point chosen, one can choose an earlier starting point)
5. One cannot "traverse all past events".
6. If one cannot "traverse all past events", then "one cannot get to the current state we are experiencing now".
#1 and #6 contradict, therefore there are not an infinite number of past events.

I reject #6, its conclusion doesn't result from the premise. Its like arguing that since no frog can jump as high as a house, houses don't exist. One can get to the current state we are experiencing now by picking any time in the past and traversing forward. Not being able to traverse all past events has nothing to do with whether we can get to the current state from a particular past state, just like the jumping hight of frogs has nothing to do with the existence of houses.

G. Brady Lenardos wrote:

Although minimally so, isn't the term 'God' consistent with what we mean when we talk about an infinite, uncaused, always existent, that is transcendent to our finite, derived (created) universe?...
If, however, we chose to deal with the subject rationally, then the conclusion is clear: God Exists!

Note: Because of my refutation above, he cannot claim that there must be a thing that is uncaused" nor a thing that derived (created) the universe. Also, I noticed him proving that something has always existed, but I failed to notice a proof that a particular thing always existed. Hence we are left with these properties for something which he can call "God": something exists, and that infinitely into the past, at each point it was true that something must have existed. Which is what he started with.

Calling this "God" and calling what the Bible described as "God" is misleading. Proving that something exists, and something must have existed infinitely into the past... and then allowing others to use this proof to mislead others into thinking that you have proven the existence of the Biblical "God" is shifty.

Further notes:

Another option which G. Brady Lenardos hadn't mentioned or came up with is that Reality loops through the same states/events. That is: at some point in the past/future, Reality becomes the exact same state that it once was in, and from there will do the same thing it did last time: going through the same events and states as last time, again and again.

Also, its much easier to think of an infinite number of events in the past if you think of reality as a state machine:

Reality is everything that currently exists, yet Reality continually changes from state to state.
Time is a measurement of how much reality has changed between two states.
A state is a point in time.
I exist in the current state of Reality.

Isn't it easy to think of a bunch of stuff (Reality) which always exists and continually changes? One could also imagine traversing backwards through time, continually seeing the state that Reality was previously in, further and further back into time. Or forwards.

Post 8

Friday, December 22, 2006 - 3:58pm

Dean:

     Your fascinating post raises a question in my mind.

     In your use of the term 'reality' therein, (contextually-speaking, of course), imply a narrow meaning in terms of ONLY 'now'? --- I've always considered 'existence' to be meaningful in terms of past, present and future, a-n-d, 'reality' to refer to same.

     Or, am I being too myopically 'technical' in trying to understand?

LLAP
J:D

Post 9

Friday, December 22, 2006 - 7:48pm

John,

Yes, only now. The past doesn't exist anymore-- but lots of parts of Reality change very slowly... so lots of things that once existed in the past exist with little change today. Examples:

- Diamonds keep their structure for thousands of years.
- CDs are readable for 3-5 years.
- My car was made in 1999, but is still running well. Its rusty underneath from being driven in Michigan for its first few years, even though I now drive it in California.
- My brain... its been learning and forgetting things for decades. I still have some memories from tens of years ago.

We can have records of the past, videos, pictures, etc... but those are just forms of information storage (forms of usefully organized parts of Reality that change slowly). The past doesn't actually exist anymore. Only now exists.

I hope I've made myself more clear. : )

Post 10

Saturday, December 23, 2006 - 2:20pm

Ah, good - you got exactly as far as I did before running into this poorly worded, at minimum, section, which is crucial to Brady's argument for the existence of God. I'll ruminate upon your take on it - hopefully soon, but no guarantees - as I couldn't quite pin down exactly where the error(s) are, but it was not convincing, and the point where it stopped being convincing was when Brady throws in this "traversal" thing. Before I can definitively weigh in, I have to have a clearer understanding of that terminology.

However, the argumentation prior to that point is marvelous. I wouldn't hesitate to use it in a discussion with someone who was trying to deny existence or identity.

Thanks for taking a look at it. I'll be on it as soon as I can spare the time.

Post 11

Saturday, December 23, 2006 - 3:26pm

Phil Osborn, I'd also recommend: Importance of Philosophy on Existence Exists. It lacks the God stuff, yet also lacks the discussion on where Reality came from.

Post 12

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - 9:12am

Dean just stated:

"In one case I was very persistent at pointing out one person's contradictions when it was claimed that requiring individuals to take care of all children was consistent with objectivism."

(btw - That is capital "O" for Objectivism as per Rand's own instructions.)

Dean is talking about me and he did not exactly "point out contradictions." He simply repeated over and over that I was a "looter" whenever I posted and linked to the beginning of a discussion.

This is a very good example of what happens when something is incorrectly read. A specific thing or things happen at points in time and then, because of incorrect reading and not paying attention, even the person's own memory of what went on becomes transformed into something that did not happen. Dean's statement of my position, for example, has nothing to do with reality, but with an impression in his head instead (I do not believe he is dishonest).

For the record, I have yet to mention anywhere that I speak for "Objectivism." Also, during all that past discussion, I never "claimed" what was or was not consistent with Objectivism, other than compare Rand's writings against what some other posters were claiming. I basically tried to dissect the ethical and metaphysical underpinnings of a sensitive political issue in Objectivism-land in an extremely hostile environment. Nothing more.

On the issue of rights and legal obligations, I overreacted emotionally to the excessive hostility and name-calling at the time, but I later put the issue on ice, stating formally that I retracted my own opinion (note: not Objectivism's opinion, but my own opinion) and was studying the issue, which is where I still am today. Lot's of highly intelligent Objectivist "heavies" and others happen to agree with my questioning, as they have stated in posts and e-mails.

It is a good idea to be precise when describing another's written statements. They can be checked.

Michael

Post 13

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - 10:40pm

Past forum discussions are still available. Anyways.

Post 14

Sunday, December 31, 2006 - 8:05am

"People tend to assume that whatever they fear, the other side intends to do." -- Fisher and Ury in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.

The trust accounts advisor for Heritage Auctions recommended Getting to Yes at the Michigan State Numismatic Society "Educational Forum." I am reading the book now. In describing how people fail to communicate, the authors use descriptions that are echoic of "The War for Men's Minds." Seeing the other side as a threat to your existence is common, especially among nations. Yet, the Israelis and Egyptians, the Indians and Pakistanis have been able to negotiate successfully on some (if not many) significant points.

One tool for successful negotiation is to state your opponent's position in terms they agree with to show that you understand it. The Ransberger Pivot devised by Ray Ransberger and Marshall Fritzis very similar.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/libertarian/106540
http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Kayton/The_Ransberger_Pivot.shtml
However, Barry Klayton says that this does not come "naturally." I ask: according to whose nature? If you are engaged in a "war for mens' minds" then agreeing with your opponent will seem "unnatural." However, if finding agreement is habitual, then that will seem "natural."

How successful have Objectivists been in this "war"? When did it start? Was it from release of The Fountainhead as a movie, or the novel Atlas Shrugged, or the founding of the Nathaniel Branden Institute? Fifty years is a long time to fight a war. Have taxes decreased? We did see some significant deregulation and the fall of communism during the Reagan Administration. We also saw the looting of Drexel Burnham. Is the world a safer place? Are you more prosperous than you were?

To me, Objectivism as a personal philosophy, and I learned that from Harry Browne's Freedom in an Unfree World. According to Browne, you can make a relatively good life for yourself despite conditions you cannot control, and you do that with a rational personal philosophy. So, even though my usual income has plummeted from $40 per hour to $10 per hour since 2001, I am pretty much where I was then, and happy to be me, which is most important in any case. So, for me, the benefits of Objectivism have continued to accrue.

Nonetheless, the world is pretty much the same place. The War for Men's Minds is not going well. Perhaps a different strategy would be more successful.

Post 15

Tuesday, January 2, 2007 - 8:46pm

One of the more successful long-term strategies has been that of groups such as the Masons. What they do is create a separate community within whatever nation/state, etc. Within that community there are methods of peacefully resolving disputes between members. However, there is reason to be critical of groups - such as Masonic orders - who sometimes parley their secret ties (the handshakes, passwords, etc.) into a blank check against the rest of the world.

I look to other successful social institutions for examples. The Mondragon Cooperative is one such. They have demonstrated that it is possible to build a strong economically successful community on a foundation of industrial democracy, loosely paralleling the widespread experiments in co-operative economics that were prevalent in the Basque area of Spain, especially among the anarcho-syndicalists.

Unlike the 20th Century Motors of Atlas Shrugged, however, Mondragon has a very strong commitment to economic success. None of this "from each - to each" nonsense. They are a bunch of hard-nosed business people. While I personally would probably find it way too constraining to be stuck with essentially a lifetime commitment to a company, many people are willing to do so, and their success reflects among other things, the value of social capital. When people are going to be around for the next several decades, then they have a real vested interest in doing things right.

Unfortunately, the state tends to suck up social capital as it almost always expands to the limits of a society's resources and then beyond. If there aren't already internal conflicts setting one group against another, then politicians will see to it to remedy the situation. Mondragon, on the other hand, is a profit-making business - and proud of it.

If the police do a lousy job, and crime increases, then they get a bigger budget, a formula for programmed failure. For Mondragon companies, doing a bad job and losing money is a sure way of getting Bigtime attention from the Mondragon bank, which may decide to take over management if nothing else works. Nobody gets rewarded for failures, which is perhaps why Mondragon employees make much higher wages plus a whole lot better benefits than their non-Mondragon equivalents.

(Edited by Phil Osborn on 1/03, 8:31pm)

Post 16

Thursday, January 4, 2007 - 8:30pm

Isn't the net wonderful!

Here's a question: I was a big fan of Branden's in the '60's, and got all sorts of lectures on LP, etc. from NBI. I still consider his "The Psychology of Self-Esteem," (PSE) to be the best thing in its field. However, because of all the problems connected with his split with Ayn, we are caught in a kind of dilemna. If we use Branden as a source, then it's like we are insulting the memory of Ayn, but if we don't then there is an effective vacume, as his work was by far the most comprehensive and integrated of any that I'm aware of in connection with Objectivism.
So, is there any new or old and independent work in the field of psychology related to Objectivism?
I'm not just asking this rhetorically or out of idle curiousity. In particular, I'm concerned that lacking a sophisticated understanding of motivation, we may miss essentials in our strategies to change human society.
My own primary focus in this field has been on something that Branden briefly touched upon towards the end of PSE and then apparently dropped, without realizing how important his discovery actually was. That is, perceptual reaffirmation. As Ayn pointed out, most human effort does not go into simple survival. We spend most of our time and energy doing things to recreate our inner life in the real world, something closely akin to art, in fact.
Branden begins his discussion with an example involving his dog, Muttnik, in which has asks the question, ~" why do I and the dog both get so much pleasure in mock battles - tug-of-wars with towels, etc. - that seem to make no rational sense." Then he goes on to discuss the "Muttnik Principle," by which he means (~) that we can only perceive ourselves - our consciousness - through interactions with something else in the universe that can interact directly with it - meaning another consciousness. Thus, the primary value of other people (and dogs, of course) is not in the physical wealth that they make possible via trade and specialization, but rather in their ability to be a mirror to our "soul."
Which is why people will die protecting a loved one, but not usually for a dam they built, or a house, or a piece of art or programming code, or even money! People observably do put enormous energy into trying to achieve and/or preserve the most perfect of unions, a romantic love affair.
So, given that this is how people actually behave, how can we use that information to sell people on Objectivism?
My thoughts: The single thing that is most lacking among most people on this planet is a positive view of the future - or the present, for that matter. A lot of that has to do with the pernicious influence of religion. As in, what does it matter what scientific/technological miracles are wrought when we're all going to die and go before God to be judged? Thus, life on this planet is discounted.
I started this thread with a discussion of people who adopt religion because they feel that without it life is miserable or meaningless. Hooked on "God," they are no longer especially concerned about mere life's misery. Arguments from reason are not to be taken too seriously, either, as their "faith" (literally believing without a reason) is stronger than any mere "human" argument.
(Here's an experiment: next time you debate a religious person, ask them to define "faith." Then ask them if it's ok if you just substitute another word whereever you would otherwise say "faith," as in "Gwack," "Blamp," or whatever glossalystic silliness you can come up with.
Or, if you can get them to admit that "faith" has no actual content, but is just a placeholder that they are insisting on treating as a real thing, ask if they could please just use "nothing," or "nonsense" or "idiocy" whereever "faith" appears. As in, "But I have idiocy that God exists and will make everything right.")
But before someone adopts such an inherently addictive and solipsistic position, they first have to become convinced that life on this earth is miserable and meaningless unless on postulates something beyond it. So, our job may be largely to ensure that people DO have a positive vision of the potentials of life on earth.
Question? How is it that so many people do see life as miserable and/or meaningless?

To be continued....

Post 17

Thursday, January 4, 2007 - 9:05pm

Phil,

Thanks for the reminder about the "Muttnik" principle. I guess that's why we spend time on online, hoping for feedback, maybe positive, from like minded people. Finding resonant minds. "Isn't the net wonderful!" Indeed.

Loved your part about replacing the word "faith" with "idiocy"!!

"But I have idiocy that God exists.." LOL!

That was great.

Post 18

Thursday, January 4, 2007 - 9:23pm

Phil Osborn,

Hah, replacing "faith" with "nothing," or "nonsense" or "idiocy"!

How is it that so many people do see life as miserable and/or meaningless?

In what ways do you see life as meaningful and enjoyable?

Thanks,
Dean

Did you mean to include the word "imaginations" in your text:
"Or, if you can get them to admit that "faith" has no actual content, but is just a placeholder that they are insisting on treating [imaginations] as a real thing, ask if they could please just use "nothing," or "nonsense" or "idiocy" where ever "faith" appears.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 1/04, 9:28pm)

Post 19

Friday, January 5, 2007 - 1:00am